I'm not afraid of opening some cans of worms, so let me voice my opinion on something that happened recently that really infuriated me.

Caterina Simonsen is a 25 years old girl from my very city, Padova. She has four rare diseases (primary immunodeficiency, a deficit in C and S vitamins, a deficit in Alpha-1 Antitrypsin, a pathology of the phrenic nerves that causes paralysis in the diaphragm) and a more common, benign tumor of the pituitary gland. She is alive thanks to medicines that have been achieved through animal experimentation. Details are available unfortunately only in Italian as far as I could find on the net, but suffice say that if you google her name you'll see that she has to live with a breather constantly on.On facebook, she explained her situation and just said "i'm alive thanks to animal experimentation". In few hours more than three hundreds of people covered her in insults and wished her to die.She replied with two videos (available on youtube but again, in Italian) where she explains the medicines she has to take and her life. Not as an appeal to emotions, but to show what her life is like.www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbTfRM…www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbwBuH…She adds an invitation to ex parliament member Michela Brambilla (who in recent times fomented an illegal break in into an animal experimentation facility, which was subsequently closed) and the european animalist party to fight the use of animals where not fundamental for human existence (she listed hunting, slaughtering and use for fur clothing). She added that instead of raising so much ado and obstacling the work of researchers, they could raise funds and invest in the pursuit of an alternative, equally valid method to animal experimentation. She also asked them to take a stance against the people who wish death to her because of what she previously said. For the record and just to make things clear, Caterina is vegan and has to integrate iron because her diet is too low on it, as she says in the first of the two videos.Michela Brambilla and the aforementioned party did not give any reply.

I don't like animal rights activists. Amongst other reasons, they use ignorance and appeal to the emotional, rather than the rational side of people, to further their cause. Look at PETA's shock advertisings where they objectivize the female naked body for the sake of catching audience by feeding controversies into the media. It's cheap and ridiculous.But mainly, animal rights movements and their adherents like to mix things up equalling animal experimentation with vivisection (they are not the same thing, check wikipedia or a dictionary and see the differences) and with the treatment of cattle, the "horrors of slaughterhouses" etc. thus committing an enormous logical fallacy, because these are completely unrelated things. Another common behaviour I've witnessed amongst animal rights supporter is a complete disregard for the human condition in favor of that of animals. It's not uncommon to hear animalists claim that they'd rather save their dog's life than a human being's.

I am completely disgusted, to say the least. So next time some of these ignorant fucks blathers about stopping animal testing, I'd like them to remember that not only people like Caterina depends with their lives on medicines that are tested on animals for their efficacy, but even common antibiotics and pharmaceuticals used in veterinary medicines are tested on animals. And that no, despite what you love to picture in your sick, misinformed minds, testing doesn't involve crazed psycho scientists that drool and have repeated orgasms while torturing poor innocent immaculate puppies. It involves making sure that those medicines are effective and safe for use. It's not done to satisfy sadists, it's done to further science and save lives. And if you think that the life of a ferret or dog is more valuable than that of a person, then no amount of sensible reasoning will save you from your maddened stupidity, so this whole journal entry is not for you.

Even if I were against animal testing, I would still nt wish death to those that use products which were first tested on animals.

I dont wish death to those alife today by advances to fight horrible diseases that were made by infecting black people when they were treated as less than human.

I think a human life is much more valuable than that of a non human animal.

That said, I believe it is extremely important to not put all animal ativists ithe same bag. Appeal to emotions happen for any propaganda. Its how advertisement works. I know because I studied it.

I know there is a lot of animal deaths that are done merely for gastronomical pleasure (almost any burger) and I do am against that. I think it is a worthy cause to be against that, and I do believe one day we will look back in horror at the times in which we killed animals not for survival or development of medicine, but because they are yummy.

I am also a vegetarian and have outstanding test results on my health.

First of all, sorry if I said something strange - this is serious problem and I'm not Englishman ^^' I use English every day but rather specialistic language connected with technologies...

I was strongly connected with animals right activists, in fact - I was one of them. Yes, exactly. WAS. This is very specific group of people.

They are - no doubt - hypocrisy. This is exactly why I leave this group. It's impossible for me to say about animals rights and in the same time screaming about killing people. WTF? Not a long time ago I found advertisement of man who want to find new home for his at, because he has not enough money to care it properly. And the animals right activists commented this advertisement with the way full of pure agression. They are some serous man who deleted it and very good.

(Here I make big, very, very BIG digression and then send it to hell because sense of my comment was totally losed. But, one more, connected with one of your comment. Monkeys are used in experiments, but not connected with testing medicines but with neurology. Nevermind.)

I agree with you in this specific case. But I don't like radical opinions because they are always in some part simply false.

Animals rights activist are not only them who said such things and wanna kill people for their dog - they are in mainly part normal people, who saved many, many animals - beaten, starved, bad treaten. So I have only the small ask - don't forget about that side of problem.

Because - with this activists - is slowly the same problem as with feminist. Everybody who scream so stupid things loud are called in such way and the idea is forgotten.

In fact, nobody, who never saved even one small pet/animal cannot be animals right activist. This is like me called myself musican, because I know what the piano is.

Well, it is a matter of definition then mainly.When I speak of animal activists, I mean those hypocrital extremists. The others who do not like animals to suffer and do what they can to live in balance with them, I just call sensible people.

Speaking of animal rights. Now that's another big topic and I hope I'm not using a difficult phrasing.Animals cannot have rights.Rights are a human abstraction. Animals cannot think abstract. Therefore they cannot understand rights.Rights come with duties, first of all, the duty of respecting other individual's right. Animals do not abide to the duty of respecting another animal's rights. So they cannot have rights. If an animal has the right to decide of its life, which is the prime and foremost right, then it must also respect other animals' right to do the same. But a predator, like a cat, does not do that. Giving rights to animals and not to other life forms like plants is similarly hypocrital. We value animals over vegetables on what criterium if not the fact that we're animals too and not vegetables? But does it make any difference outside of our scale of value? No. It is even scientifically proven that vegetables feel pain and even communicate with each other when they are under attack by secreting chemicals that other plants of the same species receive, and react to.Oh and last but not least, as a primate omnivore it's my right to choose to eat meat. Giving the right to live to cattle infringes my right to fulfill my place in the food chain. Maybe I depend on meat. Maybe, like many, I cannot metabolize a sufficient quantity of proteins and iron from vegetables. What then?An animal right activist in the meaning I use would say "you just deserve to die, the cattle is more important". Seriously, a lot of people says that. To the girl I'm talking about in this article, one said "i wouldn't sacrifice my goldfish for you: if you had died at nine nobody would care".

Accepting that life feeds on life without cruelty or without regret but by simply being is the only sensible thing that nobody does.Not giving rights does not mean to freely slaughter and torture.There already are strict laws against abuse and mistreat of pets without the need of granting rights.

Babies have rights before they understand what rights mean. As humans they should very well on my opinion have much higher rights than non human animals, but their having rights in itself should not be dependant on whether they understand them, but whether we should attribute it to them or not.

Animal rights make sense to me precisely because we should aim to be better than them.

If a cow ever tried to kill me and somehow the more reasonable way to avoid it was instead of running to kill the cow, sure, I see nothing immoral on doing so and even after that enjoying it as a burger.

Havent had this scenario on my life ever though, so I decided to become veg. If I ever need meat to actually survive (as opposed to gastronomical pleasure) I would consume again.

Babies have limited rights. They cannot vote, cannot drive, cannot drink, cannot smoke and cannot own and manage property (in most countries). They are kept in a pocket reality until they come of an age when they are supposed to be able to understand rights and duties.What is important is that the human mind created rights and the human mind can grasp them. The mind of an animal never will because it lacks the capability of abstractions.Some rights are granted out of compassion even to the people with limited mental capabilities because they are just unfortunate members of our own same species.

Animal rights make no sense: what I just said stands entirely unchallenged and not disproven. Especially the bit where it's our responsibility to be responsible and not the animal's right to be protected. Our duty, not their right. No need to go as far as giving them rights, because, as I said, if you grant animals rights, testing medicine won't be possible, nor will it be possible to eat them because you'd be violating the prime right of being in control of one's life.

I formulate that likewise, out of compassion, we should grant rights to other sentient beings, because they are also sentient.

That`s why limited rights would work for them as I see it. Way more limited than the limited rights of the most limited humans, but still, at least having the right to not be killed for gastronomical pleasure, I think, its a very fitting right for animals to have some day in the future.

Its a subjective matter though. Morality cannot be argued from a logical standpoint 100% unless we agree on the premises.

One of my premises is that suffering and killings are to be avoided regardless of the species. If you dont share this premise, there is not much I can say to you.

What I do say, is that it is (thanks god) human to be compassionate to beings that will never be able to understand and give back such compassion even when they are from another species. Of course many animals have shown compassion to animals of others pecies, but given our greater intellect, I expect us to be a greater example of compassion even.

We can see suffering and consciously try to help others avoid it. This is beautiful and on my mind a moral duty. Many humans agree with this and become activists, which does not mean they oppose animal testing. It does not mean they dont oppose it either of course.

Many kinds of activists from many different stances exist. My point is that there are wonderful goals to have on animal activism, not that ALL animal activists have ALL their goals be good.

I dont have a formal stance on animal testing because I have nowhere near the kind of studies I would need to know how necessary they are or when. I do would say I assume many are indeed helpful to better it up for humans though, and as horrible as it is for other species capable of suffering of love of trust of care to have done upon them the horrible things done upon them... well, I can understand it more than "Mmmm I love the taste of meat! I want a Big Mac! Now do whatever you have to, me want yummy"

"One of my premises is that suffering and killings are to be avoided regardless of the species."

That should include vegetables which you conveniently ignored.

And predator animals. Are you going to stop them? Lions hunt by suffocating their prey crushing its windpipe in their jaws. Crocodiles drown their preys. How about just accepting that life preys on life and that death is part of the cycle of life?

Animals sentient? What does sentient mean?

But enough, you clearly aren't following my logical passages because you're just ignoring all of them.

1) false. Industry does not conceive the idea of diminishing production. So you can change one cultivation into another, but as you have both vegans and non vegans now, you only obtain that cultivations intended for cattle for non vegan diet be converted into cultivations for vegan, with no decrease in total cultivation, and this is merely for an economical reason. The decrease of production is not an option for any industry.

2) logical fallacy, the reason you give, "because one likes the taste of burger", is not the reason for a non vegan diet, or at least not the only reasonable one. Biologically we're omnivores. You want proof? We have canines. Vegan diets can cause imbalances in protein (those of meat are different) and iron (unless you eat tons of spinach, and I mean literally tons, you do not have a sufficient iron intake) and some people simply cannot bear it.Further flaw in your logic: if you think you are not inflicting pain when you kill vegetables, you are mistaken. They have receptors of pain and they even communicate chemically between each other when attacked and damage. That is scientifically proven. You just cannot hear them scream when you cut them. As such, the pain argument is hypocrital.

Hmmm, I think I must agree with you that is the problem of definition.

When I said "animal rights" I mean "ability to live in proper conditions and die with minimal pain". Nothing else.

I'm not sure how it looks like in Italy - in my country there is big problem with protecting animals from human cruelty. Yes, we also have some laws against that but they are not enough... and they are not executing in proper way.

For me making animals and plant equal is like making animals and humans equal. Not, wait the moment - animal is closer to human than to plant. And animal is over vegetable because it is much closer to us.

I have nothing to people eating meat. I just have something to people who breed animals for meat in bad conditions, against law - as I said in my country this is big problem. And this is question of my religion, but eating or not meat is for me private decision of every human.

As I said I agree with you - exremists said things being pure stupidity. The life of animal never should be more important than life of human.

Well"Not, wait the moment - animal is closer to human than to plant. And animal is over vegetable because it is much closer to us."This is your biased vision as human being, but if you remove yourself from the equation, sure, they're different but how can one say that one is "over" the other? From a detached point of view, they should be on the same level, so a vegan is in no way more virtuous than a meat eater. The vegan think he is not causing pain, and that's true with animals, but not with vegetables. They (the vegetables) get genetically manipulated, packed together in crowded fields and drenched in poisons... Besides, a vegan diet is not ecologically more sustainable than consuming meat. The megacorporation Monsanto holds 70% of the entire market of seeds in the world. They support and spread the vegan diet, because it means more seeds to sell for them. Especially soy (with which vegans very often replace meat). Mass soy plantations are causing a devastating deforestation of the Amazon, release of greenhouse gases and forced movement of peoples to new areas, including natives who lived in those portions of the Amazon.

And I see what you mean with animal rights, but then it shouldn't be animal rights, but rather human duties. Marking the difference is very important here, I think.In Italy the law is terribly strict. If you beat a dog, you'll be punished. And now they're introducing laws that will be basically killing animal research in my countries, because they listen to a noisy minority of people who'd rather see humans die than animals.That's the problem with extremist. They're minority, but they're a very noisy minority. And sometimes I question the rationality of my fellow citizens of Italy... there are quite a lot of extremists because the situation is extreme, politically and economically.

The only thing I know is that cow farts are actually one of the major causes of enviromental damage today. To the point the UN wanted to promote eating of bugs so less people consume meat so less plants are needed to feed the meat and less meat farts.

And soy is not at all needed on a vegetarian diet. It tastes good, which is fine, but you can be a very healthy vegetarian with almost no soy if you eat well.

Well, to be honest, speaking about suffering vegetable is... strange. Vegetable has not neurological system, what is more. It have not even the feeling of being alive or behaviour. Just some systems of protecting itself.And also for me looking at some things not as human is just too abstract to use it as argument. I judge things from the position of human, always.

Of course - if you remove som variables from equality, it always give you whatever you want.

I'm not for or against vegan. I just don't care. I'm not the vegan also, however I eat meat rare. But as buddhist, not as ideologically involved one. Everybody may eat what they would. And to be honest, I think we can end this part of discution because it's gong to nowhere, however is interesting :3

Well, way you call things is better, that fact.

So, in Italy you have totally different situation as far as law against cruelity concerned. In Poland sometimes punishment for killing dog or cat with big cruelity is only paying some money... and for some part of population (not very big, but significant), especially kids and teenagers, beating or killing animals are the big fun. In some districts of city, where I live, I was afraid to allow my cat go outside home for few hours. There was simply too dangerous, because someone (you don't even know, who, this is second big problem here, nobody want to has problems and tell anything to the police or anyone) was playing into hunter and hurt animals from his f***g bow -.-

Vegetables do have organs and systems that work like nerves. It's a fact.They do have a behaviour, they move and have feelings. You just don't perceive them, but that doesn't mean they're there. But if you talk to a plant and nurture it, it will grow better and stronger than if you just give it water and ignore it. It is just that the world of plants is a very, very, very slow one. Your mind is too quick to grasp it, but it is there.So if you judge things from the position of human, you see that it's just a matter of personal opinion and cannot be used as an universal, generic and objective point of analysis, right?I personally don't think that the life of a potato has an intrinsic value that is less than that of a human or a dog. To nature it does not matter. Nature is. But of course to me rational human being capable of abstraction and even to understand and describe my own feelings, my fellow human beings are obviously more important than any other life form. It's a perspective, not something that is an objective quality of humans over plants. And of course, this means that I'm horrified at hearing people who'd save their dog before saving a human life.

Yes, of course. If you wanna consider things in fully objective way, nothing really matters - life of simple human, animal, plant is not important in exactly the same way. Only existence of populations influent in some ways on the nature equality, but still - there are no less or more important. And if you want go even further, all our Earth nature may die and Universe will be existing in exactly the same way, so...

And I understand your feelings about people who claimed such things.

Yup. This is rather nice country, but we have some serious problems here...

Oh you just gave me the hunch for an interesing observation.If you introduce an alien species to an environment, like rabbits in Australia, or recently wild boars in the hills near my city, that animal will proliferate without control unless there is a predator culling its numbers, or unless they run out of food (because they eat it all).Human beings are the only species capable of deciding to limit their impact on the environment. Proof is that we are conscious of our environment and of the consequences of our actions to it.So you see, we are part of that balance of nature, but in a very unique way.

I'm always a little afraid about ignoring dangerous people.When in Italy Mussolini tried to seize the parliament and stirred disorders with his followers, the senate simply ignored him. And eventually he managed to seize the power...in Italy a mob of animal rights activists caused a research facility to close. They took all the beagles and the police did nothing to stop them because they were led by a right wing politician. As a result, the company who ran the facility sought another country, dozens of people lost their job and Italy saw its research capability further shrinked (it's already abysmal really).So ignoring them... I don't think I can... all this just to explain myself, not to criticize you, mind you!

Oh, no certainly not. But there are people who might fall on their side swayed by their propaganda, and spreading correct information and informing the public may stop them.Then it's up to people's conscience and intelligence, but you can't really do more than that without infringing human rights (and those do matter to me).

I keep telling them.But you know what's funny. Some of those 'activists' suggested that it's those who want animal experimentation that should become the subjects of the tests. Which doesn't even make any logical sense, if you think of it.

But in a better world, it's what's happening. We'd even be having even better responses to the tests when they're conducted on 100% DNA compatibility subjects anyways, right?

but remember car safety is one that was done with a rather gruesome start of using bodies of recently dead to see what happens to the body in a severe crash.

For if we dont do research we may end up with more products that is released and later revealed as "oh it actually wasint healthy at all", self illuminating paint pigment was the perfect example as it was rated as "wonder-drug" or makeup additive for spice it up...

these things are interesting, but I wouldn't trust a medicine tested on a rabbit or rat, there is just too big difference in DNA (just in case it doesn't impress you, think about different mass of body, speed of heartbeat, skin structure, food, length of life), therefore these tests are unscientific and are just a cheap way to do any testing. They don't - in any way - guarantee the quality of medicine.

"And if you think that the life of a ferret or dog is more valuable than that of a person, then no amount of sensible reasoning will save you from your maddened stupidity, so this whole journal entry is not for you." it's a matter of dicussion if there is any difference between a value of life of particular units, as value is something that each person sees subjectively (yeah, i think my cat's life might be more valuable than life of corrupted politician or war criminal). As i wrote above, problem with animal testing is not ferret=human, it's problem lays actually in fact, that human and ferrets have nothing in common other than being mammals lol

I think that the researcher who test on animals know better than you do. In fact this has been discussed quite extensively. Why do they choose rats, dogs and rabbits? Exactly because their DNA is the closest to ours except for monkeys (and monkeys aren't used because they are rare, difficult to breed and too close to being human for our confort. And that is why they don't test on chameleons, lizards, or other animals. You can believe that or not, it's a FACT.

it's not a fact that rabbit that lives 2-3 years can give similar, long time results as human that lives approx. 75 years.

You can scale the math, but all you'll get with these tests is just a theory, and tests are not usually done to get a theory, but real results. I mean no forum fighting, man just sharing my opinion, there are just way too many questions, and lots of money in meds industry to just say that "scientists know better".

additional small thing: you'd use a little different meds than a pregnant woman or a newborn. So if there are such differences between humans, it doesn't matter that DNA of small furry animals is somewhat close to ours, furry animals are not relevant to our health in no way. All you can do is to check if they die instantly, their skin melt or they turn into zombies if they're given tested drug

Ok, here we go. As promised I asked a friend wo works in the field instead of venting misinformed musings only dictated by cynicism:

Data portability (if we can call it that way) is a subject that comes out often in such debates, but funnily enought it's quite a big issue in the research field as well: why would I test a drug on an animal if the target species is completely different? Wouldn't I get results that have a huge variability in their chance of being transferred? Actually the answer is quite complex.Since the DNA homology is brought out as a definitive way to assess the portability I would point out some aspects that are frequently overlooked. DNA homology is often express as a percentage of similarity. However that number alone is quite misleading: some genes are exactly identical in many different species (even quite far from a philogenetic perspective) because they are involved in processes that are highly conserved. Call them the basic cell survival/feeding program. The differences are for sure bigger in other functions that the organisms can do (related to reproduction/higher brain functions/metabolisms etc).Let's say your research interest is a drug that works on a signal transduction pathway that is quite conserved: the probability that a drug working on that pathway will have the same effect across different species is high. Mind you, this consideration is not just a speculation, it's something that is done in everyday work when a research project is written. Since I cannot experiment (with exceptions of course) on humans, what is the best model I could use? The answer is quite variable.Sometime it's a mouse, sometime a goat. Another one is a pig (quite interestingly they share A LOT with humans when the immune system is considered, so much that the pig is the only species I know of that has been used for xenotransplantation in humans). Sometimes it's a transgenic mouse in which you induce artificially the pathology by altering the genes that are involved in a process in a way that mimic what happens in human diseases. Sometimes even this is not enough and then you set up xenografts models: you take cells from a patient who actually has the disease you are studying, you transplant them in a mouse or a rat and then you treat the animal with a drug, so that the results you see are on human cells even though in an animal environment (which is much easier to handle, has much more shorter times to assess the effect of the drug and let you test multiple compounds at the same time on the cells of the same person).

As for the differences such as the speed of heartbeat: instead of thinking of such a small difference, think about how much a rabbit, a mouse, a human and a cow heart are similar: they share a very similar embryo origin and development, all of them have auto-excitable cells that drive the heart contraction, the muscle cells work in the same way to achieve the same function. It's just a matter of what you are investigating: effect of nervous system on heart function? Well, it involves effects on heart frequency so I would say that a mouse is not a very good model. Are you investigating the ion channels that makes the pacemaker cells generate an action potential at regular intervals? Then maybe the mouse is a good model.

Just to put together what is the purpose of animal experimentation and the reference to meds corporation in drug research&development.What is the life cycle of a drug? I'm not working on drug development by the way, so I won't be able to give specific information about that. Just a general idea of the process.Let's say that through research you identify a signal transduction pathway that is involved in a disease (it can be anything, from a cell receptor used by a virus to enter the cell, to a cell enzyme that mutates and initiate a neoplastic progression). Based on this information you start to think to classes of compounds that could affect this pathway in the way you want. And when I mean classes I mean up to thousands of compounds that affects different points of the same pathway. All of those candidates maybe just to get in the end 2 or 3 molecules that could be used as drugs for humans. Where do the others end up?They are gradually lost in different steps: first, there's some in silico study, basically simulations of how compounds and cell components may interact (if they do it at all). You get rid at this phase of a lot of candidates. Then you start with the in vitro testing: you use cell lines (google if you don't know what they are) to test the direct effect of your drugs on the cells of interest. Then you get rid of the compounds that do absolutely nothing and the ones that are toxic to your cells.At this point you don't have a lot of promising candidates and you switch to an animal model to test for efficacy, potency of the effect and systemic toxicity. After you got rid of another good number of candidates you can then move on to clinical trials on human where you have to show that they don't have a toxic effect and that they are better than what's already available for a specific pathology. Animal experimentation is fundamental in thinning the candidates: in vitro testing alone cannot do that because they are simple system where you don't have the complex interactions among different cell types that you can find in a living organisms. Why then not skip directly to human clinical trials? Because then you would have to do a lot of them, each one involving a control group (which will receive either a placebo or a commonly used drug that maybe has little to no effect) and a treated group that maybe will be receiving a toxic drug which you could have eliminated just by testing it on animals. Animal experimentation is just a link in a long chain. Or better yet think of the whole process like a funnel: you start with a lot of different molecules to get just one that is not toxic and has a strong effect on the disease your studying.Which lead me to the next point: how much expensive is such a process? For each drug that gets on the market many many more are tested and stopped. The amount of money needed is huge. And honestly, public health systems don't have that kind of money. So, you want a drug that work when you have some disease? Then you have to pay the company that developed it to cover the costs also of all the other ones that didn't make it to the market. And of course, you can't expect them to make it just for the sake of mankind. They're companies and they also expect to make profits out of it. Is it right? I don't know, but for know it has worked quite well and I can't think of an alternative that could substitute in a short term.

How do you know what the result a rabbit gives are? I asked people who work in research and it's about DNA compatibility, not how long a test is made. Why do people always listen to other people who know nothing and not to the expert who base their lives on these researches, I'll really never understand.That math matters nothing with research as far as I know but I will ask a researcher about it. Thing is. If researchers do use animals, isn't that proof enough that they are necessary? If researcher could pursue other means, more accurate, or even just less expensive, don't you think they would?

PETA is a joke. They're attention whores, pure and simple. Their shelters kill far more animals than their non-PETA counterparts, and they're more interested in making pokemon parody games to stop children from getting into dogfighting than actually stopping dogfights.

I know right? And they petition Elon Musk to make Mars a vegan only planet? And what about "tofu boy"?And how about they're financed by Monsanto, world's biggest GMO producing megacorporation? The ones who most enthusiastically encourage people to become vegans because they sell the seeds? Named worst megacorporation of the world in 2013 for mass producing toxic chemicals, aggressively running small farms out of business, and recklessly promoting genetically engineered seeds that exacerbate food scarcity globally by the way. www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cam…whose soy plantations are accelerating deforestation of the Amazon as well as increasing the release of serra gases in the atmosphere? And again, why the hell do they still have all that leverage??

PETA are morons. I am a tree-hugging animal lover and PETA are stupid. Humans are animals too, really, we're just at the very tippy top of the food chain.

Animal testing for products that NEED testing are fine. When they test products that have already been tested time and again? Not so much. I'm not really down with testing cosmetics/hair products on animals. Medicine/cancer treatments/etc? YES. TEST. TEST AWAY.

Oh for the love of... so according to those people a lab rat's life>a human life? Really? And i suppose they will think the same thing when their loved ones are starting to die off because they'd get untested medicine? Or what? They'll selflessly volunteer themselves for experiments? Or perhaps "insignificant" people like hobos, long time unemployed and disabled people should "volunteer" instead?

Tell all this to PETA. Actually don't. They'll just bury you under a pile of insults and threats.Hey check the replies to this journal. There's people who appearently think that a human life or an animal life has the same value to them.